


temporary relief

by mine_eyes_dazzle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, POV Maria Hill, Protective Steve Rogers, Telepathic Wanda Maximoff, Wanda's first mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 22:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19118575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mine_eyes_dazzle/pseuds/mine_eyes_dazzle
Summary: Wanda goes because it’s her mission, the first that Fury allows her to go on, still troubled by her switch of sides.Steve goes because he’s Steve, because he’s protective, because after all it is her first mission.Hill goes because, god dammit, someone on this trip needs to know how to use the coffee machine.ORSteve's grieving, Wanda is too, and Maria Hill's trying to hold it all together.





	temporary relief

Fury comes to Hill. He really shouldn’t be involved, Steve’s in charge apparently, but he’s still got one eye (ironic) on the new recruits. She’s just minding her own business, trying to get through a particularly badly written report from an agent in the field (is ‘guesstimate’ really a word?) when Fury finds her.

 

‘Wanda’s going to Spain.’ He slumps into swivel chair at the empty desk next to her, clutching a candy bar.

 

‘I’ve heard it’s very nice this time of year,’ she replies, bemoaning the fact her agent has now gone on to describe his very dubious meal choices and therefore she has no legitimate distraction from Fury’s intense stare.     

 

‘Rogers is going with her.’ That gets her attention - so she drops the report, turns in her chair so that they are face to face. Fury takes a bite out of his candy bar.

 

‘Why?’ she asks, because she knows that’s what Fury wants her to say.

 

‘Because he’s worried about her. First mission, after all.’   

 

Hill leans back in her chair. Fury munches in judgement. ‘All right,’ she says, throwing up her arms in mock defeat, ‘I’m giving up trying to guess why you’re telling me this.’

 

‘Wanda blew up the coffee machine last week,’ Fury tells her.

 

‘Oh no, not the _coffee machine_.’

 

‘And we both know Steve’s never going to work out what a flat white is.’ Fury is watching her closely. ‘And you must be joking if you’re going to tell me that reading those god damn reports beats going to Spain.’

 

‘I’m not a baby-sitter,’ she says, getting to her feet. She stretches out her back, closes her eyes and tips her head to the sky. She can feel Fury’s eyes on her. ‘I’m only going for the coffee.’

 

She doesn’t even need to look down at Fury, stuffing the crumpled candy wrapper into a pocket, grinning to himself. She knows him too well.

 

* * *

 

Fury neglected to inform her that Steve and Wanda had not been told about her involvement. She clambers up into the quin-jet and finds them mid-argument.

 

‘I do not need you to _keep an eye_ on me,’ Wanda says, rising furiously. Steve, opposite her, is about to hit back with a response - something calm and measured probably, the guy is Captain America - when they realise they’re not alone.

 

‘Hill?’ Steve says, quizzically.

 

‘Fury didn’t tell you? Funny that, ey?’ She bundles past the two static figures and swings herself into the pilot’s seat. ‘Now, guys, it’s three days. Let’s try not to kill each other, okay?’

 

* * *

       

They get two next-door hotel rooms. Two single beds in one room, a connecting door and then a sparse single for Steve.

 

It overlooks the building that is their target - a lightly defended laboratory with some shady tech that Fury would prefer they had in their own possession. It seems a bit low key for three of them, but Hill’s too tired from the flight to care.

 

They’d parked the quin-jet on just outside the city, a small airport that Hill knew wouldn’t care about the extra plane in the hangar. In another life she’d known the air traffic control commander - she made good tacos, if she remembers right.  

 

In the corner of the hotel room, there’s a coffee machine. Steve and Wanda view it like a wild animal, Hill just laughs. Fury has one hell of a sense of humour.  

 

* * *

 

 

Two nights of surveillance, of testing the water, then one final night extraction leading to the flight home. Should be simple.

 

Hill sets up a command centre in the hotel-room, props up her laptop on the coffee machine, keeps in close contact with Steve and Wanda, who go on recon (but a part of Maria thinks it’s just an excuse for Steve to test out the local cuisine).   

 

When they get back, Steve and Wanda go into his room, play cards. She can hear them through the paper-thin walls, taking quietly. They are wary of her, she can tell. She isn’t a superhero, she doesn’t fit in with their little group, so she stays in the twin room, uses the coffee machine, hears Wanda gloating when she finally beats Steve.

 

* * *

 

On the second night, their last night in Spain, things change. Hill can hear it, lying on her back on her bed, newspaper balanced in front of her face. They’ve found the weak points, come up with a plan - tonight was supposed to be rest and recuperate. They were just playing cards again as far as Hill could tell.   

 

And then the other room goes silent. Not just a lull in conversation, but a silence that has the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. She might not be a superhero, but she can tell when something’s up.

 

‘I can’t do that, Steve.’ She hears the words as she drops the newspaper and swings upwards. She can see them now, through the half-open connecting door. The cards are left abandoned on the table.

 

Steve and Wanda are staring at each other.

 

‘What can’t you do?’ Hill says. Both of them turn to look at her sharply, as if they’d forgotten she was there.

 

‘He wants me to get inside his head,’ Wanda says.

  

‘I think I’m gonna need a coffee.'

 

* * *

 

 

‘So you want her to-’ Maria gesticulates, imitating Wanda’s hand-waving, ‘and then you’re hopefully gonna see this woman you left behind in the forties?’  

 

Hill is sitting on her bed again, cross legged. Steve’s on a chair, arms neatly folded like his request wasn’t entirely insane. Wanda’s pacing, face troubled.

 

‘I’m supposed to be here to make sure this goes smoothly, not let you do some weird mind-control trick while I watch the news.’ Hill sighs. Wanda still paces, Steve sits, set.

‘I know what it’s like to lose someone,’ Wanda says suddenly, coming to a halt in front of Steve, eyes wide and searching. ‘I know what’s like to want-- no, to need, them back.’ Hill winces a little. She was there in Sokovia, she saw what happened to Wanda’s brother.

‘I can feel your grief. From the moment we met,’ she goes on. ‘But this?’ she says, a red glow emanating from her outstretched hands. ‘I don’t know if this can help you.’  

 

‘I think we should take a walk,’ Hill says. ‘Yeah. Let’s all take a walk. Think this crazy plan over a little.’ 

 

* * *

 

Hill manages to get them out for the most tense walk of her life. Steve stalks along, silent, hands stuffed into his pockets, Wanda shuffling her feet.

 

When they get back to the hotel, Steve disappears into his room, slams the door, and sulks. Just because she’d put the brakes on to his stupid idea, Hill thinks to herself.

 

Wanda sits, pensive, in a chair by the window. Hill taps away at her laptop, adding to her report for Fury. Maybe she’ll leave out the bit about Steve’s crazy plan. Yeah. That wouldn’t go down well, she thinks.

 

* * *

 

It’s later, when she’s stabbing away at the coffee machine, that Wanda speaks.

 

‘I could do it, you know.’ Hill turns around to look at the other woman. Wanda still stares out the window. It’s started raining, the sun dying on the horizon line. ‘And I get where he’s coming from.’      

 

Hill doesn’t say anything. Wanda finally tears her eyes away from the sunset. Her eyes are wide, and she suddenly looks her age, like the kid she still is.  

‘I’ve lost someone,’ Wanda says. ‘He’s lost someone.’

 

Hill’s holding a cup and saucer, neatly filled to the brim from the coffee machine. Wanda’s eyes are pleading, and Hill knows that she’s not going to like what comes out of the other woman’s mouth next.

 

‘Who did you lose?’

 

She puts the cup and saucer down. It clinks against the wood. ‘Some things are best kept as secrets.’

 

Hill sighs. She’s actually going to say yes to this crazy stupid idea.

 

* * *

 

Wanda’s hands are glowing. Hill’s never seen it up close before. It’s a little bit beautiful, a little bit scary. Steve’s in the other room. ‘A wall can’t get in the way,’ Wanda shrugged when Hill suggested giving Steve a little privacy.

 

Hill’s trying to ignore the ever-so slightly mad events going on around her, catching up on paperwork, ticking boxes and forwarding emails. But, of course, that’s a little difficult when Wanda keeps glancing at her. She feels like that baby-sitter Fury promised she wouldn’t be, except it’s like she’s letting the kids brawl and trash the house.  

  

‘What does it do?’ she asks, giving up on the emails and shutting her laptop.

 

Wanda shrugs. ‘Amplifies what’s already there.’ Her hands flare a deeper red as she speaks. ‘So if I wanted to use it as a weapon, I make the fear worse, then trap them there.’

 

‘And so you’re amplifying what right now? His hope?’

 

‘Something like that.’

 

Hill nods slowly. ‘Can you feel it? Do you know what he’s feeling?’

 

‘A little. Flashes, I guess. Names and faces. Feelings.’ Wanda flicks a glance at the wall, behind which Steve must be, seeing the woman he lost.  

 

‘Ever do it for yourself? For the people _you’ve_ lost?’     

 

Wanda shrugs silently. When Hill thinks she’s not going to say anything, she says in a quiet voice, ‘It doesn’t bring them back. Temporary relief. He’ll realise that in the end.’

 

* * *

 

 

The mission is a success. It feels somewhat like a distraction, despite the fact that it’s the reason they’re all here.

 

* * *

 

They’re back on the quin-jet. Wanda’s sleeping. She had the brunt of the work - it was, after all, supposed to be _her_ mission.

 

Hill’s at the controls, tapping out the auto-pilot instructions, Steve silent in the co-pilot seat beside her. He hasn’t talked much since the night before. Hill heard murmured conversation between him and Wanda after she brought him out of the vision, but they were a room away. All she heard were the words, ‘Thank you.’

 

‘It help?’ Hill asks, taking her hands off the controls when the course is set.

 

Steve shrugs. ‘A little.’

 

‘She recruited me, you know.’ Hill wasn’t sure she was going to bring it up until the words blurt out of her mouth. She’s heard the stories, seen Steve with the compass, read the reports about his visits to the Smithsonian. But she’s never told anyone about this, least of all Steve. She knows it must be somewhere in her records, but no one’s ever asked.

 

‘Who?’

 

‘Peggy Carter.’ Hill swallows, unsure as to whether she’s crossed a line. ‘She was a brilliant woman.’

 

‘Yeah,’ Steve breathes. Hill glances at him, realises that he’s got his eyes shut, that he’s not really in the room with her anymore. She gets it. Wanda was right about the fact that she’d lost someone. A secret never to be told.

 

Just like this trip, Hill thinks.

 

* * *

 

‘Hill.’ Fury’s voice booms down the corridor. They fall into step side-by-side. ‘I take it everything went smoothly.’

 

‘It’s all in my report,’ she says, though it’s a little white lie. It’s not _all_ in her report. ‘But yeah. It was fine.’

 

‘Nice weather?’

 

‘Perfect.’

 

‘No coffee machines blow up?’

 

Hill laughs.   

 

**Author's Note:**

> Watched CA: The First Avenger and AoU. Had feels. This happened.


End file.
